


where there's a will, there's a lawsuit

by botanyclub



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Confessions, F/M, Getting Together, i know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings, there is no plot outside of them getting stuck in an elevator, this is ridiculous but mom put me in charge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24953125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botanyclub/pseuds/botanyclub
Summary: Anne has first-chaired enough murder trials to potentially get away with one, or at the very least create enough reasonable doubt to be acquitted in court. She knows every loophole, technicality, and precedent in the book; can and continues to argue circles around every state prosecutor in New York. It is only the question of motive, of which she has in abundance and to nobody’s surprise, that is the unfortunate stumbling block in her path to committing the perfect crime. A shame too, considering Gilbert Blythe would look good on a Missing Persons Report.akaGilbert keeps suing people because he has a crush on his lawyer, Anne.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 21
Kudos: 160





	where there's a will, there's a lawsuit

**Author's Note:**

> I am six seasons into The Good Wife and this is the result. Let's just *general hand-waving motion* over all of it, yeah?
> 
> Very much inspired by Season 4, Episode 18: Death of a Client.

Anne has first-chaired enough murder trials to potentially get away with one, or at the very least create enough reasonable doubt to be acquitted in court. She knows every loophole, technicality, and precedent in the book; can and continues to argue circles around every state prosecutor in New York. It is only the question of motive, of which she has in abundance and to nobody’s surprise, that is the unfortunate stumbling block in her path to committing the perfect crime. A shame too, considering Gilbert Blythe would look good on a Missing Persons Report.

He sits across from her now, smug and impossibly loaded, $600 million burning a hole in his pocket and his only insurance against being booted the minute he steps foot into her office. Anne plasters on a smile, if only because he is one of her firm’s biggest clients, and she is only marginally better situated than the dirt beneath Prissy’s Louboutin shoes. The managing partners tell Anne, under no uncertain terms, that to keep Mr. Blythe happy is to keep her highly replaceable job.

“Are you here for an update on the Millhouse suit?” she asks, pulling up his case files on her aging work computer. The folder size alone is probably half of Anne’s memory, extraneous and loaded as they are with copies of retainers and depositions. Millhouse is just the most recent in a string of twelve lawsuits Gilbert’s brought to darken the walls of her shitty, shoe-box office, each one increasingly more ridiculous than the last. It doesn’t even matter that he sends her on wild goose chases trying to prove culpability and damages—not when Anne is clocking 35 billable hours a week on just his personal cases alone. 

He shrugs his shoulders, as if to say “sure,” and fiddles with the stress balls laid out specifically for his perusal. Anne noticed his habit of fidgeting during his second visit to the firm, chalking it up as another one of his eccentricities along with his refusal to look her directly in the eyes. Gilbert is something of an enigma, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, charisma personified but more reserved when they’re alone. 

Gilbert seemed pleased, though, when she pulls the 4-pack of fruit-themed stress toys from her drawer and presents it to him with a smile. She flatters him with the tidbit that he is her first client to receive gifts. Gilbert’s answering grin sets off a kaleidoscope of butterflies all up and down her gut, before he spends the next six months bringing in lawsuit after lawsuit to exasperate his lawyer to death. It is probably the last time Anne remembers feeling anything other than a low-level annoyance towards the man with the 220 IQ.

Gilbert runs a billion dollar tech company but contributes next to nothing outside of his brilliant ideas, not suited for the business side of things, which he leaves entirely in the hands of his brother Sebastian. Anne recognizes him immediately upon first meeting, his being the face that is plastered inside every Economist and Wall Street Journal in circulation since 2017, when Gilbert first launched his start-up from an apple orchard in Canada. But she mostly knows him from when he made his debut on People Magazine’s Most Eligible Bachelors List the following year, holding firm to his top ten status in every iteration since.

She supposes he’s handsome in the most clinical sense of the word. Not in the way that Elon Musk is handsome, with millions of dollars thrown in to sweeten the deal, but attractive in general. Dark curls and hazel eyes, fit physique, and with enough height on him that Anne sometimes fantasizes about Gilbert crowding her up against a wall. All of this is negated though in the face of his peculiar personality, equal parts awkward and like talking to a wall.

“Well for starters, I’m pretty sure the judge is going to laugh us out of court,” Anne announces, even if it falls on entirely apathetic ears. Gilbert hemorrhages more money bringing forward these suits than he wins back in settlements, barely breaking even in the few cases that don’t get thrown out altogether. This doesn’t, however, stop him from dredging up frivolous charges on a whim, despite Anne’s objections to how it affects her previously flawless record. Everyone in the office looks at Anne with self-serving pity, masking bald envy over how the tech mogul chooses to work with her out of all the higher-level associates. Turns down even Harmon Andrew and Bill Barry in favor of Anne. 

“Are we still going to court?” Gilbert asks quietly, finally looking up from his hands. He looks unhappy at the prospect of not wasting time, as if he has nothing better going on than spending two hours’ worth of daylight on a bench waiting for their docket to be called. She doesn’t like the way his eyes bore into her own, somewhat fortunate that he very rarely makes eye contact normally, preferring instead to sneak peeks when he thinks she isn’t looking, only due to the way his gaze makes her skin crawl like static. Anne is momentarily flustered, not so much uncomfortable as she is entirely unnerved, shuffling papers around before stuffing a stack of them in her briefcase. She’s due in chambers soon and doesn’t have the time to entertain Gilbert any longer. 

“Maybe,” Anne replies, but it doesn’t have the same cool cadence she is used to adopting. She doesn’t know why the weight of his hazel scrutiny is affecting her all of a sudden, calm and collected lawyer that she usually is. But then again, very rarely does anyone get under her skin like Gilbert Blythe does, living there rent-free even on the days he doesn’t drop by unannounced. As it is, Anne spends too much of her energy worrying after his lawsuits and, by extension, the litigious man himself. “I actually have an arraignment in forty minutes and need to be heading out. Did you want me to walk you down, Mr. Blythe?” She collects her things without waiting for a response, asking only as a courtesy because Gilbert always says no. 

“That would be lovely, actually,” he murmurs, so soft she barely catches it over the sound of her fluttering pulse. Anne looks up in time to see him avert his eyes once again, clearing his throat into a fist clenched too tight to be casual. She nods wordlessly, slightly taken aback, but recovers quickly and swings out from behind her desk. Gilbert unfolds himself from the tiny guest chair she has the budget to replace but doesn’t, if only to make him suffer, and even in heels, Anne is completely dwarfed beneath his height. She opens the door and follows him out into the hall, surprised he remembers to shorten his strides so Anne can keep up with him more easily. Although she is apprehensive about the extra minute it adds to their journey, a whole sixty seconds that she has to make up for in conversation. 

Anne presses the call button for the elevator, looking up at Gilbert to inquire after his family. It is one of the six safe topics she has broached in the time they’ve spent together, and a sure-fire way that will get him talking for longer than a fleeting sentence or two. Gilbert delves into an anecdote about his niece, Delphine, who he is attempting to teach coding despite the fact that she only just broke double-digits in age. “I’m always trying to tell her about the gender disparity in tech, but it seems like her heart is tied to being an astronaut in outer space.” 

“Much cooler,” Anne finds herself teasing just to watch the ends of Gilbert’s ears turn pink, “than laboring over motherboards at work.”

“Is that what you think I do all day?”

“And hacking into mainframes, of course.”

“I’m begging you, Anne. Watch something that isn’t a Jason Bourne film.” He says it without any heat, Gilbert’s attempt at a joke, and one of the rare times she’s almost tricked into finding him charming. The corner of his lips lift involuntarily into a smile, lopsided and small and reserved only for Anne; different from the ones he presents to the world and somehow more genuine in a way she can’t justify for thinking. Anne pulls it out of him sometimes during depos and settlement meetings, when her temper gets the best of her and she’s halfway off the rails, reigned in only through the use of legal jargon to give her the semblance of control. Mostly she yells in defense of Gilbert’s honor. 

“What can I say,” Anne shrugs, stepping into the elevator when it arrives. She heats at how close he follows immediately right behind her, sidesteps at the last second to avoid bumping shoulders. “Matt Damon is perhaps the love of my life.” 

“We’ll see,” is all GIlbert cryptically has to say.

They fall into silence again, loud and conspicuous, wrapping around them like sweaters in the chill of New York November. In that same vein, she contemplates bringing up the weather to discuss, like how exceptionally cold and biting the raging storm outside can be, when the elevator lurches crossing between the 12th and 13th floors. Gilbert is quick to throw an arm protectively across her chest, the other gripping firmly to the railing to keep them both from toppling over, steady as a rock compared to the teetering Anne does in her heels. The elevator is submerged in darkness before the quiet hum of the emergency lights flicker on. 

“Are you kidding me?” Anne huffs, glancing around like help is miraculously on the way, set to emerge from behind the gold-mirrored walls at any given moment. She checks her cellphone only to note the lack of signal and wifi, predictable given Murphy's law on the whole situation. 

Gilbert remains cool despite Anne’s obvious distress, inspects the button paneling before placing an emergency call.

“Hello? Is anyone there? My name is Gilbert Blythe. My lawyer and I are stuck in an elevator at 605 15th Street NW.” His finger pushes down on the call button so hard she can see the white of it like cotton, blood draining quickly until he’s lost circulation past the knuckle. The rest of the conversation remains perfunctory and calm, the person on the other end of the line promising to have someone on the scene in the next two to three hours. 

“Two to three hours?” Anne hisses, mostly to herself rather than directed at the customer service representative. Power grids are out almost ubiquitously all over Manhattan in the rain, theirs one of dozens of elevators suspended throughout downtown. She can’t even call Judge Spurgeon’s office to inform them that she’ll be late. “Wonderful. Amazing. Magnificent. Stupendous.” 

Gilbert shrugs off his wool coat and lays it unceremoniously on the ground, sits and pats the spot next to him while looking up in invitation. “It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do,” he says in response to no-doubt Anne’s peeved facial expression. Begrudgingly, she accepts the truce and tucks her legs uncomfortably beneath her, wishing she had gone with a pantsuit this morning rather than her new skirt and blazer combination. They are maybe two inches apart but Anne can feel his body heat radiating in comforting waves, enough to relax her and creep insidiously behind her defenses. 

“What do you want to do?” she whispers subconsciously, trying her best not to pick at a thread she finds near the kneepads of her stockings.

Anne feels Gilbert gulp heavily beside her, looking nowhere in particular when he ventures to ask “what do you mean?”

“To pass the time. Games like 20 Questions or even Truth or Dare? Maybe 7 Minutes in Heaven?” she throws the last one out as a joke, laughs aloud to clearly indicate as much, but is met with the audible of Gilbert repeating the same sharp intake of breath. She looks over just to be sure he isn’t hyperventilating from claustrophobia or something similar. But even in the dark, he looks no worse for wear. A little red in the face, but otherwise fine. 

“Well?” she prompts, when Gilbert doesn’t respond. She suspects she could talk around him for hours and he’d let her at that.

Eventually, he clears his throat when it becomes apparent that Anne will not allow his stoicism to slide. Not when they’re trapped together in an elevator maybe seven feet wide, two excruciating minutes into what will no doubt be a three hour affair. “As a lawyer, I think you have too much of an advantage when it comes to 20 Questions.” 

“Objection: argumentative.” 

Gilbert smirks. “Overruled.” 

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll do it in 10.” 

And like that, they trade turns for the better part of an hour, laughing and grinning and leaning closer all the while. They leap from “I’m thinking of an animal” ( _“You are dangerously close to boring, Mr. Blythe, and also it’s 100% a lion.”_ ) to “Advice my therapist gave me that I have still yet to take” ( _I don’t think it's intrusive at all . . . Fuck off, the answer is_ not _creating boundaries!”)._

Gilbert jokes with her freely and smiles wide enough to show off a particularly white set of bicuspids, not as self-conscious when they are insulated from the outside. In here, in their own little world, they are the only ones that matter. Anne and Gilbert. Gilbert and Anne. More and more, she sheds away his layers, until Gilbert is raw and exposed and only himself without reserve. The one she only sees in small snatches; glimpses of a man Anne is convinced she almost likes during her quieter moments before bed. Holds it closely, like a secret, in case it boils over and spills. 

Impulsively, she leans her head into the slope of his shoulder, convinced she might weigh this ephemeral part of him down. Gilbert stiffens for a second, but quickly relaxes under the load. Presses his cheek against the side of her scalp.

“Can I ask you a question?” Anne whispers before she loses the nerve.

When he speaks, she can feel the press of his lips on her hair. “You’re confident you can guess my answer with only one?”

“I’m being serious.” 

“Okay, shoot.”

“Why all of these lawsuits?” The words burst out of her like a dam, held back with paper barriers since the first time they met. “It’s not like you need the money.”

To this point, Gilbert willingly concedes, straightening out so that he’s facing Anne bravely in the dimness. “I’ve never needed the money,” he agrees, and there is something heady in the way his hazel eyes lock on, pressing against her despite the intangibility of his gaze. “It’s all about the process.”

She blinks. “What process?”

_“Being with you."_

> __

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY KISS!!!!!
> 
> One of the many dumb things I write to get writer’s block out of my system, but thought it was worth polishing up and posting. Please feel free to drop your cease and desist letters in the comments section below. 
> 
> Alternate titles:  
> -Habeas My Corpus  
> -Pleading the Fifth  
> -i object (you from loving me)
> 
> Shoutout to Em (the_lazy_eye), Fer (lydiastxles), and Riley (metsuryuogi) for the suggestions and laughs.


End file.
